The present invention relates to ultrasonic diagnostic equipment; particularly it relates to diagnostic equipment which employs ultrasonic probing to examine a patient, and generates composite display of patient-related diagnostic information including organic information derived from the ultrasonic probe.
Ultrasonic diagnostic equipment as used in the medical field provides tomographic display of real-time cardiac data, and also displays such information on patient bloodstream as flow velocity distribution, calculated from a volume sampled by the pulsed Doppler method. Furthermore, it is well known to provide tomographic and bloodstream flow-velocity displays arranged on a single monitor of the ultrasonic diagnostic equipment.
One method of composition-imaging cardiac information provides dual display of two-dimensional tomographic organic information together with real-time bloodstream information such as average flow velocity and flow velocity distribution. In this method, the tomographic organic information and bloodstream information are digitalized and combined, and further converted by a color palette into R (red), G (green) and B (blue) color display signals. The R, G, and B color signals are output to a display monitor, wherein the detected bloodstream information is displayed in full color, superimposed on the ordinary tomographic image display.
A video tape recorder (VTR) or a magnetic-optical disc (MO) can be used as external storages to record the composite imaging. In the former instance a composite television signal generated from imaging data is recorded by the VTR, and in the latter, the composite imaging color display signals are recorded onto the MO.
The imaging data recorded on the VTR are regenerated by retrieving the television composite signal and demodulating therefrom R, G and B color signals which are output to the display monitor. Wherein the MO is the external storage, the R, G and B color signals are retrieved, converted into analog signals and output to the monitor.
According to the aforedescribed organic data storage and retrieval system, in recording into external storage the composite full-color imaging of the tomographically displayed organic information and of the real-time bloodstream information it is impossible to separate, for example, bloodstream average flow velocity data or tomographic imaging organic data from the retrieved or regenerated signals. Moreover, it is thus impossible to perform such post data-retrieval processes requiring discrete data as altering luminance or chrominance of the color display signals, or altering the imaging gamma; nor is it possible to change other of the retrieved imaging data, or measured outcome.